Authorities in Tehran on Thursday accused the Saudi-led coalition now intervening against Houthi rebels in Yemen of hitting the Iranian Embassy in Sanaa in an overnight airstrike.
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“Saudi Arabia is responsible for the damage to the embassy building and the injury to some of its staff”, Iran’s foreign-ministry spokesman, Hossein Jaber Ansari, reportedly said on the state television network, adding that the damage was “deliberate and intentional”.
The diplomatic row between a number of Sunni-majority countries and the Iranian government all begun after Saudi Arabia executed 46 people, among them a vocal Shiite cleric, Nimr Al Nimr.
According to Iranian officials, a Saudi airstrike late Wednesday saw a rocket hitting the embassy compound, doing some damage to the building and injuring several personnel, mostly guards by all indication. Hussein ordered the execution of a prominent Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Sadr, in 1980, inflaming sectarian tensions that persist to this day. Sanaa and other parts of Yemen are under the control of Shiite rebels known as Houthis, who are backed by Iran.
Tehran’s accusation came amid a rise in tensions between Tehran and Riyadh in recent days after attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran.
Tehran announced Thursday it was banning imports of goods from Saudi Arabia in response to the incident. The tiny country shares close diplomatic ties with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, he stated. The United Arab Emirates downgraded relations with Iran, while Kuwait and Qatar have recalled their ambassadors.
Saudi Arabia’s Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman says those pushing the idea of a war between his country and Iran are “not in their right minds”. Saudi forces then moved to “immediately” destroy the missile’s launch pad in Yemen.
Iranian officials condemned the attacks, with President Hassan Rouhani calling for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.
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Crisis in Saudi Arabia-Iran relations will invariably complicate the situation in region’s other countries, such as Syria, Yemen and Iraq, senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, James Dorsey believes.
